14 Jobs For English Majors That Pay At Least $60,000

Ah, the plight of an English major! College students in 1970 made this discipline one of their favorites, but it's been a downhill slide since then, amid jitters that hanging out with the Bronte sisters might be a ticket to chronic under-employment. Then again, maybe the alarmists have overdone it.

A new study from PayScale Inc., the Seattle-based job-data firm, highlights 14 types of jobs -- all paying at least $60,000 a year -- for which English majors are unusually likely to be hired. Eight of these involve traditional editing, writing and public relations. But most of the rest appear in newer fields with a high-tech twist. It turns out that even the digital economy needs people who are good with words.

Let's take a look. At the top of PayScale's list: being a corporate communications director. That pays an average of $128,000 a year. Humanities majors are 4.3 times more likely than the average college graduate to end up in these jobs. Within the pool of humanities majors, English majors are the most likely of all to do such work, which essentially amounts to running a company's PR team.

Other old-school jobs that pay well and attract English majors include editorial directors ($92,000), executive editors ($91,000), editors-in-chief ($74,900) and senior writers ($71,400.) Those job titles can arise in a wide variety of settings, but if they make you think of slow-growth or shrinking specialties such as magazines, newspapers and book publishing, you're not wrong.

Meanwhile, though, PayScale is finding plenty of signs that humanities majors in general -- and English majors in particular -- are making headway in faster-growing areas related to digital content. Among the bright spots: content strategists ($90,500), content marketing managers ($82,100), content managers ($72,200) and web producers ($69,900).

Also in the mix: technical writers ($69,700) and technical editors ($69,500). Those options for English majors have been around a long time, but as tech's inventions keep multiplying, the demand for people who can explain each new creation increases.

I've been writing a lot in the past year about the ways that liberal-arts graduates can find good careers in a tech-fueled economy. Some notable pieces include this Forbes cover story and this Wall Street Journal article. If you want an individual example of an English major made good, there's lots to be learned from the career progression of Andy Anderegg, whose story opens the WSJ piece. She started out with a $33,000-a-year writing marketing copy for Groupon, but rapidly rose to become a high-level editor and content strategist. It didn't take her all that long to reach a six-figure pay package.